Making off without payment

22 April 2025

Request under the freedom of information act 2000 ref no's: FOI2025/02561

I write in connection with your request for information received on 21st March.  I note you seek access to the following information:

Please tell me:

1.       How many reports of making off without payment (MOWP) has your force recorded between January 2020 and January 2025?

a, Please break this information down by month and calendar year.

My understanding is your force may log when a MOWP offence specifically occurs at a petrol station/forecourt. Therefore, over the same period:

2. How many reports has your force recorded relating to people driving off from petrol filling stations without attempting to pay, colloquially known as ‘drive offs’, or driving off without paying for fuel?

a. Please also break this information down on a month-by month and year-by-year basis.

If the following addition would not cause this request to exceed the 18-hour time limit, please include a breakdown of :

b. how many of these instances related to the theft of petrol, and

c. how many to diesel, each year.

3.       Over the same period, please provide, if possible, the recorded value of the fuel taken in drive-offs, broken down month-by-month and year-by-year.

4.       Please provide a resolution/clear-up report on drive-off offences over the same five years –

EG numbers of summons, community resolutions, undetected etc, broken down month-by-month and year-by-year.

5.       Please inform me, if possible, the names of the five petrol stations that reported the most drive-off offences for each of the five years in question, including details of the value of fuel taken from each station each year, broken down year by year.

If reviewing five years’ worth of data to would exceed the 18-hour time limit for completing FOI requests, please provide this information for the past three years (IE January 2022 to January 2025).

If this is also too onerous, please provide this information for Jan 2023 to Jan 2025; and if this is too onerous, please data from Jan 2024 to Jan 2025, broken down month-by-month.

I am required by the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (The Act) to handle all requests in a manner that is blind to the identity of the requestor. Any information released in response to a request is regarded as being published and therefore, in the public domain without caveat.

Following enquiries within Bedfordshire Police Force please see our response below.

Please see Attached Annex A FOI2025/02561

The numerical data presented in this response is an un-audited snapshot of un-published data sourced from "live" systems and is subject to the interpretation of the original request by the individual extracting the data.